Frequency Changes Everything (Intuitive+ Bonus Issue)
Hello dear reader,
This is the first Intuitive+ bonus issue I've published since migrating to Buttondown! The first of many to come.
So…
I recently published on my blog that in 2025 I've set a very specific goal for myself: daily blogging.
Because it's such a lofty goal, I haven't dared to attempt it before. There's absolutely no way I'm getting to, say, October 22, 2025, and just not posting that day. If I'm committing to daily blogging, I'm daily blogging, goshdarnit! And yes, that means all 365 days of the year. No breaks on the weekends (and honestly, I have more time to write on the weekend anyway!).
The time finally feels right to give this my all. However, I have a cheat code I never had before in years prior, and that is I run more than one blog! 😂 I will have fulfilled my daily quota if I post on any one of them, which is good because I may have an idea one day to talk about some pressing tech news—allowing me to post on The Internet Review—and on another day I might have a movie review after returning from the cinema—allowing me to post on Jared White.com.
Or maybe I've really just completely over-engineered my online presence. Don't answer that!
Shh, keep this under your hat, but I've actually already started this goal! Today (Saturday) will be the 7th day of daily blogging, and tomorrow kicks off Week 2. I have some thoughts about how this first week has gone:
- Calendar scheduling is key. I don't have a reminder to write a blog post, I have an all-day event (literally titled POST! POST! POST!) which repeats every day. So any time I look at my calendar, I immediately see this at the very top. Once I've posted something, I manually change that day's event to read POSTED! or something like that. This lets me verify at a glance that every prior day I've fulfilled my mission, and today onward it's a non-negotiable event.
- Take notes on the go. I've long used Bear as my go-to notes app of choice, and it's more important to me in this endeavor than ever before. If I'm on the run, roaming to and fro, and an idea comes to me for a post, I immediately sketch out the salient points in Bear. My convention is to add POSTED: to the front of a note title in Bear once I've transferred it over to my blog, so at any given time I have a list of notes that are either posted or not (aka draft). Bear in mind (heh heh) that I don't use Bear for random brainstorming of numerous post ideas. If I start a new note in Bear, that's a draft I intend to finish as soon as possible. No room for verbal chum here!
- Nail the workflow. Over many years of publishing blogs using Bridgetown, I've gotten the art of posting down to a science. I can bang something out and publish it in a matter of minutes. Most blogging platforms these days are pretty quick to use, but if you're trying to set up a regular blogging habit, it pays to ensure your publishing workflow is as frictionless as possible. Don't make me think should be the order of the day. All you need to be focused on is your words. That's all that matters.
- Be a good proofreader. For a short post, I'm usually served by re-reading it a few times to double-check I didn't totally botch a thought or mess up some sentence structure. For a longer post, I'll select the whole range of text and have the computer read it back to me. Listening to your words being read out loud will help you identify something that sounds off or is missing a crucial word or phrase.
- Don't get too attached. When you start publishing at a high velocity, you can't get precious about any particular piece of content. I've had to let go of what I think should be well-received, popular, influential, whatever. Some links will have staying power on the socials, some will fall flat. And much of the time, you'll have no idea why! This is normal. Get used to it. You serve at the pleasure of your intrinsic creative goals, not outwardly fame and fortune.
I realize that daily blogging, while a noteworthy endeavor, is much less taxing than some other types of content. If I were daily podcasting or—god forbid—daily vlogging Casey Neistat-style, I think I'd blow a gasket or lose my mind. I have enough on my plate just keeping up with the non-blogging things I do on a semi-regular basis (such as sending newsletters, writing code, and all things audio/visual) alongside blogging.
Nevertheless, I'm very proud of myself 😊 for starting on this journey, and so far I'm feeling very good about the viability of this project. Wish me luck!
And feel free to reply to this email with your questions about frequent content creation. I'd love to chat! ✌️
Cheers,
Jared
🤔 Things that make you think: 💡
"Your podcast will reach more people than your book will. A blog post will reach more people than a podcast."
"Everyone should write a blog, every day, even if no one reads it. There’s countless reasons why it’s a good idea and I can’t think of one reason it’s a bad idea."
"If you know you have to write a blog post tomorrow, something in writing, something that will be around 6 months from now, about something in the world, you will start looking for something in the world to to write about. You will seek to notice something interesting and to say something creative about it. Well, isn’t that all we’re looking for? The best practice of generously sharing what you notice about the world is exactly the antidote for your fear."
–Seth Godin (by way of Seth Godin Explains Why You Should Blog Daily by CJ Chilvers)